“Well, I was thinking that we’ve shot plenty of great footage for Heroes of Domremy, but I haven’t been able to shoot anything far from the town. Lots of folks watchin’ our show are gonna want to see some real wilderness footage.”
“Spenser, I’ve told you before, beyond the perimeter of the town it’s very dangerous! We learned that the hard way, and we’re not about to go out there again until we’re damn sure the Locals are killed off in this area! The agreement we made…”
“Cashman, ol’ boy, I’ve made every effort to keep to our agreement, but the fact is, Hyperion Corporation’s contract for this program mandates that I have to shoot some footage beyond Site 89’s perimeter. And today, I’m gonna do just that.”
“You seriously want to go wandering across the perimeter into Local-infested territory on a Monday? The men are pissed off enough on Mondays when they don’t have any special duties assigned, and you’re expecting me to break it to them that they have to play nice for the camera in territory where they can get killed in the blink of an eye so that you can finish this goddamn series you’ve been needling me about for weeks? You, Spenser Eckhart, are a fucking idiot!”
“No need to get all testy, Cashman. If the good people of Site 89 won’t assist us in finishing up this documentary, we’ll just have to move it to another settlement that will. And of course, in doing so, we won’t be paying y’all for the work you did, since you chose to cut our filming here short…”
“Fine. We’ll get out there and film whatever garbage you want tomorrow. But this is the only time I’m letting you film beyond the perimeter, and afterwards, you’re outta here. No conditions, you give us the money you owe us. And you have to be the one to explain it to them tomorrow morning, because I am not going to be blamed for anything that goes wrong out there. Understood?”
“Certainly. And I’d just like to say it’s been a pleasure workin’ with y’all.” Spenser tipped his hat and walked out of Cashman’s office. Like hell it has, you stupid bastard, Cashman thought. The day your ass is out of here and I can get rid of Klein will be the best day of my life on this planet. Because from then on, I can start counting down till I lift off for better places.
The men had gathered at the town’s entrance early in the morning. Sullen faced and bleary eyed, they had been pulled out of bed early to listen to Spenser’s announcement. They had no idea and no desire to know what Spenser was about to tell them. Even Klein, normally one of the more alert men among the group in the early morning, felt like a corpse, his Sunday night wasted in a nervous drinking binge. Spenser stood in the entryway to the town and began to speak to the unwilling assembly.
“Howdy again, y’all! This is our very last day filming in this town, so we’re gonna be doin’ something very special today! We’re going to film outside the perimeter. It’ll be a long march and take us most of the day, and we want most of you to go with us, so you’re gonna be drawing straws. A long straw means you have to come with us on our final filming session, and a short straw means you get to stay here to guard the town. So, get in line, come up here, and draw your straw! No cheating!” Cashman, who was standing next to Spenser, stiffly elbowed him in the shoulder. Spenser winced and said, “This special day is my gift to y’all, so have fun!”
The glares of the men as they walked up to draw straws informed Spenser what they thought of his “gift” to them. One of the last men in line, Klein watched as many of the men he knew drew straws before him. Guzman got lucky and drew a short one; Alek drew a long straw and muttered a muffled curse. When Klein finally got up to the box and drew a straw, he took a look at Cashman and noticed he seemed agitated and tense; his body seemed more rigid than usual, and he was nervously drumming his fingers on his hips. Cashman’s probably figured out what I did by now. He’ll arrange my death sooner or later, but he seemed pissed at Spenser during his speech. Maybe Spenser’s expedition threw off his plans somehow? Alone among the men, Klein was relieved when he drew a long straw; he reasoned that his last, best chance to kill Cashman would come on the expedition, which had thrown off his enemy’s plans.
For once in the rainy summer months of Site 89, there was a clear sky above, and the air was free of the oppressive mugginess that Klein had come to despise. He could still hear occasional croaks of “VA-ron-EY” echoing across the plain to remind him that today was only a respite from the usual weather pattern, and that the Varoneys, which Klein had come to associate with the stormy weather, were still active. The men anxiously looked at the ground as they marched, keeping a watchful eye out for the spiny toads in the nearby tall grasses. A screen of thallop riders moved ahead of the larger group on foot, providing a modicum of scouting. In contrast to most of the men, Spenser showed little concern as he charged about the group, making sure filming was going according to his plan and badgering the convicts unlucky enough to be in front of the cameras to “look nice.” Other than Spenser, there was surprisingly little noise on the march from either the convicts or Spenser’s film crew; it seemed particularly odd to Klein, who remembered many marching songs back from his days in the army. The silence even seemed odd in comparison to the strange chant of the Locals he heard on that earlier, fateful expedition beyond the perimeter…
We killed the Locals when we interrupted that chant. Maybe if I could get this group to sing loud enough, they’ll show up for revenge! Maybe I’ll still have to kill Cashman myself, maybe the Locals’ll get him, but I still stand a better chance against him in the chaos of a Local attack than with all his supporters’ guns trained on me. I’d better think up something…
Klein began to think up a marching song quickly and began to sing:
Got an ache up in my head
Walkin’ round ‘till I feel dead
March right here for an hour or two
Then fall back into my bed
A few of the convicts and one of Spenser’s crew began to sing along with him. He began to sing a second verse:
Haul this shit around all day
Can’t stop where I want to stay
March right here for an hour or four
Then I get drunk until I sway
Most of the convicts and many of Spenser’s crew were singing along now. Klein began his third verse:
Walk across this rock so far
Damn, I wish I had a car
March right here for an hour or ten
Then head straight for Whiskey Bar
Almost everyone was singing now, leaving Spenser to desperately rush about the group and encourage the convicts to act “in character” as he wanted them to. The louder the singing got, the more frustrated Spenser became, yelling loudly in a desperate attempt to assert his authority as his face turned beet-red. The dour mood of the march finally began to lift as the men paid no heed to Spenser’s repeated cries of “Shut up! Shut up!” No one seemed to notice that Klein, the man who had started the marching song, had stopped singing and was anxiously watching the surrounding grass, as if he was waiting for something to happen.
The attack came just as suddenly as it always did. The only sign was a brief rustling from the tall grass, which most of the men were oblivious to as they sung. Klein counted four shadows as he crouched low to avoid the arms of the Locals. He saw an intern scream as a Local grabbed him, but Klein got off a headshot on the poor student, saving him from weeks of agonizing suffering as a Local host. He watched as Byrne was impaled through the chest by a Local’s forearm, dropping his Kikkonnen as it lifted him high off the ground. Klein glanced around the battle, looking for Cashman so he could get a shot off from his rifle before the convicts organized for a counterattack on the Locals. He heard Cashman’s scream and turned around, prepared to shoot his hated foe dead.
He found Cashman screaming in the arms of a Local. He was desperately trying to use the butt of his Kikkonnen to bash the Local’s head in, but he was unable to bring his arms around for a powerful enough swing. The Local bit into his shoulder with its bladelike mandibles and Cashman d
ropped the Kikkonnen, howling in agony. The Local was preparing to lift off and leap away with Cashman in its arms. Cashman yelled at Klein in pain and fury, “Kill me! Take me out, you bastard! No man deserves this!” Klein raised his rifle, prepared to shoot Cashman right between the eyes…
The bullet went wide, deliberately missing Cashman’s head. Cashman was shocked as the bullet flew past his right ear, not even touching him or the Local. There was look of absolute horror on his face as Cashman suddenly realized his fate. “Klein, you son of a bitch!” he screamed in impotent rage as the Local lifted off, carrying him with it. The convicts had finally begun to mount a defense, firing on the Locals with their massive Kikkonnens. When one of the Locals was slain by a rocket, the attack ended as quickly as it had begun. As Klein surveyed the scene of the attack, he noticed that most of the kills from this attack had not been carried off, but had been killed on the spot, ripped apart the by the Locals’ massive forearms. This wasn’t an attack to obtain food for the larvae, this was an attack for revenge. They’re trying to show us that they can do to us what we can do to them, and they thought that marching song was our equivalent of their chant, Klein thought. Relatively few of the kills had been among the convicts, who were becoming progressively better at responding to the Locals’ surprise attacks; most of the kills were in Spenser’s crew. Spenser himself was lying on the ground, his leg broken but with no life-threatening injuries.
“You IDIOTS!” he screamed. “You got nearly got us all killed with that goddamn song! I should have never signed on to make this documentary on this stupid fucking penal planet! I’ll make sure not one of you gets one red cent from this miserable documentary! When I get back to headquarters I’ll make sure this goddamn village gets nothing from Hyperion for this conduct!
An ominous shape loomed over Spenser and stamped down hard on his arm. Spenser screamed, thinking for half a second in his outraged delirium that the Locals had returned, before he realized that the being standing on his arm was indeed human. Through the glare of the sun overhead, he squinted and could see that it was his old enemy Aleksandrov.
“No, you won’t be doing that,” Alek said as his boot fell heavily on Spenser’s arm. “Here is what you will do. You will give us the shares you said you would. If you do so, I will allow you to return and shoot another documentary on Hyams—he wanted to be on camera so much more than I did. If you do not give us the money, I will break your arms. Then your other leg. Then I will leave you here, and the Locals will take care of you from now on. Do we have a deal, my friend?”
For the first time Klein had ever seen him, Alek was smiling broadly as he gradually applied more and more pressure to Spenser’s arm. There was a sense of cruel mirth in Alek, like a cat torturing a captive mouse, as he watched Spenser suffer. Spenser’s agony was brief—Klein thought it lasted less than a minute—but it seemed like ages to Spenser. Spenser yelled, “Anything you want! Just get off my arm!” He breathed a sigh of relief as Alek stepped off his arm. “I am glad you see things my way. Of course, you will keep our deal, yes?”
Spenser nodded, too overwhelmed with pain and fear of Alek to resist. He called for the surviving members of his film crew to help carry him as men prepared to go back to town.
Aleksandrov sat in Cashman’s former office, putting files together to mail to Hyperion’s headquarters on Domremy. There were records of some of Cashman’s communications with his handlers at Kinderaugen; Alek cared little about whatever Kinderaugen might be and what they were trying to accomplish on Domremy, but he knew that something so clandestine was potentially dangerous to Hyperion. Perhaps, once I send these documents and computer files to Hyperion, they will favor me. If I’m lucky, they will appoint me Marshall, as Cashman was.
Alek thought about Cashman, the pathetic excuse for a man who had run the town until very recently. He had been an abject creature, content to serve as a cat’s paw for the intrigues of some covert group on distant Earth. He never had the ambition to truly rule, to make a new life for himself on Domremy. A man like him would never be a true leader of men, only one that people served unwillingly under threat. And with his intrigues broken, his power melted away like an ice sculpture in the desert.
Alek would not be a leader like him. Unlike Cashman, he was a man of vision, of strength. The two stars tattooed on his shoulders reminded him of where he came from; he had risen up from the misery and poverty of Russia’s underclass to become vor y zakone, a lieutenant within one of the Mafya families. He had killed many men who were enemies of his organization, and his superiors had granted him the eight-pointed stars on his shoulders as proof of his loyalty and status. The government of the Russian Federation had agreed to ship him off to Domremy as a form of banishment; no matter how many times they caught him and locked him up, his connections within the organization were so strong that he was never truly alone. Only on another planet would Aleksandrov be truly alone, unable to threaten them anymore.
Alek scoffed at their weakness. On this world, I shall be stronger than I ever was when I walked on Russian soil. For here, I can rule without the constraints the organization once imposed on me. He only needed a pathway to gain control of Site 89; then he would begin his ascent…
Chapter Four
Klein watched Peebo approaching with his usual unhurried gait, slouching along the farm rows as he returned from the far ends of his garden. He supposed Peebo must market all this produce somehow, because there was far too much for him to eat, or even to distribute in the village. There were rows and rows of something growing on poles that formed little teepees, perhaps some kind of bean? That was not all, since bushes and tufts and tussocks of green stuff sprouted all over the place. He pondered how he would broach the topic of Cashman, the one thing he wanted most to discuss with Peebo. No! – the second most important thing. For he really wanted to find out if Peebo’s contacts in the Crop Talk network had found out anything about Entara. There was no reason they should. After all, what did a Forlani wife matter to these rubes who seemed to spend all their waking hours jabbering about seeds and planting depths and days till harvest. Still, they often seemed to be uncannily well informed. Peebo was finally within earshot, though Klein somehow suspected that he had been aware of his presence even before his arrival and had been listening silently all the time.
“They been lookin’ for ya,” blurted out the farmer, before Klein could speak.
“They, who?”
“Fella named Dorfman.”
Klein’s mind slipped back to Germany. Dorfman. He recognized the name. Back when they had him in custody in Hamburg, before sending him to the high court in Athens. The jailers had spoken in hushed tones about a Dorfman. A kind of scientist enforcer or enforcer scientist linked somehow to Kinderaugen. In on the most secret experiments. Someone who cleaned up. For whom? Nobody seemed to know. The jailers had been wondering if he might show up and take Klein off their hands before he could be sent to Athens. They didn’t want to be anywhere close if he showed up. This Dorfman apparently left no witnesses. Klein was suddenly worried for Peebo.
“You mustn’t talk with him, Peebo, understand? On any circumstances. Don’t worry about me, but you need to stay completely below the horizon where this guy is concerned. He could be, no he definitely is extremely dangerous. Promise me you won’t get anywhere near him.”
“Sorry, pal. Too late.” The “sir” of their earliest days together had long disappeared, when Peebo began to initiate him to Crop Talk and switched to “pal” or “bub” most of the time.
“What did he ask you?”
“A lot of nonsense. Stuff he said was related to your record back on Earth. Except he seemed a whole lot more interested in what kind of weaponry you were toting. Strange geezer. He obviously had a very quick mind, incisive you might say, but not a whit interested in anything important. I tried to ask him about the failures of those genetically altered soybeans back there and he just brushed me off. To tell you the truth, I lost interest in conversing
with him then and there.”
Klein breathed a little easier. “You were lucky, Peebo. That was a close call, you may never realize how close.” Before he could ask any further questions about what Dorfman might be up to right now, Peebo sauntered over to some sprawling cucumbers.
“Just take a look at these cukes! Biggest plant in the garden, and they’re mighty juicy. Ain’t they beautiful? Make you a fine salad in just a while.”
“Fine, my friend, but just now…”
Before he could finish the explanation, the farmer was off again. “Now you look at how strong this plant is right here. It’s an exception. Doesn’t get any more or less sun than the others, but it has twice as many cukes on it. Maybe it’s the lack of bugs.”
“But Dorfman…”
“You know, it’s a peculiar thing. Some folks say bugs are funny, and you never know which ones might do the most harm.” And then Peebo looked him square in the eye. “Wouldn’t you say there was something just a little bit unusual about that?”
Klein realized that Peebo was Crop Talking. He had finally picked up the alert words and knew that a message was coming through.
Peebo picked a long, spotless fruit from the plant. “They say a man can be worried to distraction about a little gnat, when all the time a nasty wasp is just waiting to sting him. People can be strange, nicht wahr? Well, you just study this beautiful vegetable and study that plant and tell me if I don’t get results, even with one that was planted later than all the others.”
Klein now really did study the ground. The soil around the plant seemed less firm than the surrounding patch. The color of the plant and the fruits was a more vigorous green. Special fertilizer? Klein now realized what had happened to Dorfman. “But how did you manage…?”
“Nothin’ to it, my boy, nothin’ to it. You just put that potato rake in there real solid and give it a few good shakes and the job is done.”
Life Sentence (Forlani Saga Book 1) Page 11